A Comment -- General Comments From an Expert (A Commentary)

Markets have been moving sideways for about a decade. Probably has another 5 years of up-and-down choppiness that we have been experiencing. Very typical of what has happened over the last 125 years. We’ll eventually break into a new bull market in the next 4-5 years.

Gold. Has been working in a trend channel for about 2 years, particularly the equities. It is now getting back to the top of the trend channel. He just sold his gold equities because it is getting back to the top.

Technical analysis software? A couple of really good free programs on the Internet are FreeStockCharts.com and StockCharts.com and you can get longer charts on the latter for about $15-$20 a month.

Multi-Manager Diversified Funds. Is this the right time to sell? If you can put it into something that is cheaper and more diversified, then fine, but if you are looking at doing something else with your pension plan money, don't just sell it holus bolus and she will need your pension money.

How do you relate ethical investing with ETF's? This is a problem for mutual funds as well. No matter how you screen for things you think are ethical, it might not dovetail exactly with the way your providers do it. There are ethical ETF's such as Jantzi Social ETF (XEN-T).

Purchasing an annuity from an RRSP at age 71 or earlier and if so, what percentage of your portfolio? He would not do it. The money you get from an annuity is very, very modest.

Fixed income into TFSA accounts? Any kind of stocks are better for a TFSA then income. He would tend towards growth and small caps in value.

Oil. It's a great environment for oil but at $95 she is concerned that it could be a drag on the world economy. If the price changed very quickly, it could impact GDP. Saudis, because of social programs needed, have to have a bare minimum of $90 Brent oil to break even.

Natural gas. Believes production costs are higher than what the producers are claiming. They tend to give half cycle costs, which is how much it costs to drill and produce, but does not include what they have sank into it, land costs, etc. Expect it will be 2014-2015 before gas will be exported through LNG. Also, the US EPA wants to change regulations to make it preferable to burn gas.

Old pipeline Income Trusts: He owns IPL. IPL will have additional pipelines, he thinks. Leader in bulk liquid storage space, which is a cash cow.

Market: Europe. This is the start of act one of a multi act farce or pantomime. Greeks will be voting Feb 23 and gash knows what is going to happen between now and then. It’s a mess and not sure what people can do to solve it. Nov 23, the super committee is reporting on budget deficits and he is not very hopeful they will come to any resolve. Seeing hopeful signs: Better Q3 earnings and reasonable guidance going into Q4; Slightly better employment picture; Some indication that rental housing market is taking off and will eat in to oversupply of unsold homes. Bought something to day that was down on an earnings miss and was cheap in their eyes.

Bond markets. Canada is a net beneficiary from all the noise when looking at Cdn government bonds. Bond market has once again outperformed the stock market because of the flight to quality. However, it has put bond yields at levels that are less than exciting for the average investor.

Good corporate US bond? There are thousands of them so it is difficult to pick one. Would be very cautious of the financials. You might look towards a Walmart, Microsoft, etc. that are very strongly rated. You won't get much interest on them given where short-term rates are in the US. (See Top Picks.)

Outlook on bond funds and factors determining direction? Cdn bond markets have returned 7.4% year-to-date. If your fund has significantly lagged that you have to ask why. If you have a high MER on your funds that is something you have to be careful of. Would suggest you look at Universe Bond ETF (XBB-T).

Ontario provincial 4.4% bond maturing June 2/19. They're on track to reduce their deficit to get back to fiscal balance in the next 5 years.